Mother who left four kids alone to meet up with new boyfriend in Germany jailed
Four kids ranging in age from 10 down to just a year found living in squalid conditions and with little food
Mariyana Asenova
A woman who abandoned four kids in a rubbish-strewn house to go to Germany to meet up with her new boyfriend has been handed a one-year sentence.
Sentencing Mariyana Asenova at Craigavon Crown Court, Judge Donna McColgan KC told the 31-year-old she would have to serve half her sentence in jail and the rest on licence conditions but with time spent on remand, “I think you have about a month still to serve.”
At an earlier hearing Asenova, listed as current address unknown, entered guilty pleas to eight charges of being cruel to a child under 16, all committed on April 14, 2022.
In her sentencing remarks on Friday, Judge McColgan said four of the charges related to abandonment and four amounted to neglect of the children who at the time were 10, nine, five and just a year old.
Mariyana Asenova who was jailed for child cruelty offences.
The judge told the court the offences arose when early that morning, Asenova left a house in Lurgan claiming she had a hospital appointment and would be back.
“However, police understand that she was in fact driven to Dublin airport by a neighbour at 7.15am…and (it is believed) that the defendant flew to Germany to be with her new boyfriend,” Judge McColgan told the court.
Police were alerted when one of the children, all of whom were left alone for three hours, went to a shop to buy food and nappies.
The judge described how “the house was filthy, there was a strong odour, the floors were sticky, there were no floor boards, there was rubbish all over”.
She added there was also “little to no food, the bedrooms were filled with rubbish and only the defendant’s bed had sheets”.
Mariyana Asenova
Asenova was contacted and she claimed she would return to Northern Ireland but failed to keep that promise and eventually, an international arrest warrant and extradition proceedings forced her back to face the court.
Defence counsel Patrick Taylor said Asenova had admitted her guilt and “she feels shame and remorse”.
Judge McColgan told Asenova if she had taken the case to trial and been convicted the sentence would have been 18 months but allowing credit for the guilty pleas, she was reducing that to 12 months.
